Best Of The 13th Floor Elevators, The - 13th Floor Elevators

Advantages: Sheer Unbridled Geneus
Disadvantages: Don't Know HWere Teh Money Goes

...Few psychedelic bands are able to hold a sugar cube to the 13th Floor Elevators. Formed by Austin University undergraduate Tommy Hall who despite not being a musician had a clear vision of the route the band should. Tommy took an already successful local Texan band The Lingsmen and recruited Rocky Ericsson from the spades onto vocals to form the 13th Floor Elevators. The band were serious about psychedelic mind expansion, and Rocky eventually paid a fairly high price for this, spending years in a Texan asylum for the criminally insane, after pleading guilty to Marijuana possession. Anyway onto the music Tommy Hall took on the role as lyricist and band guru, he also played the Electric Jug which created a sort of bubbling sound in the background of the music. This album has its feet fairly squarely in the garage rock of the time... Read review

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Advantages: Good Intro To The Man
Disadvantages: Not His Best

...The word genus is over used but in the case of Rocky Erickson it is justified, the former lead singer of the seminal 13th Floor Elevators. He paid a heavy price for his exploration of the human psyche through drugs, ending up incarcerated in a asylum for the criminally insane for possession of marijuana. This did his sanity no good at all and he has spent a large part of his life fighting depression, however in recent interviews he seems to be well on the mend. His brother has set up a trust fund for him TrustRocky who have kindly remastered and re-issued a large number of Rocky releases of which this is one. Don't Slander Me was recorded in 1982 with his backing band The Aliens and the line up was:- Rocky Erickson - lead Vocals and Guitar Duane Aslaksen - lead Guitae Billy Miller - Electric Auto-Harp André Lewis - Keyboards Jack... Read review

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Advantages: Great singles , no fillers
Disadvantages: Mediocre cover shot

..."followed by their debut single "Sleeping Gas",not typically "new wave"for 1979 the whole idea is propelled by a kind of psychedelic keyboard sound and heads towards a chaotic repititious climax where the brass section sound as if they are on speed or at very least in another room ,as if to restore some melodic order ,the hit single "Treason" is next and in just three minutes captures and defines the bands entire impetus and inspiration for the whole record,a top20 hit in 1981 when everything seemed possible . With the benefit of hindsight "Kilimanjaro "now sounds typically 80s ,at the time however it was wilfully retrospective ,drawing its muse and dynamic from the darker recesses of the psychedelic era ,it being no secret of lead singer Julian Copes love of band,s like The 13th Floor Elevators and his unabashed adulation of Scott Walker... Read review

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